<b><i>BREAKING NEWS:</b></i> Twitter Fends Off Suit Over ISIS Attack

'Plaintiffs do not allege that ISIS recruited or communicated with Abu Zaid over Twitter, that ISIS or Abu Zaid used Twitter to plan, carry out, or raise funds for the attack, or that Abu Zaid ever viewed ISIS-related content on Twitter or even had a Twitter account,' Orrick wrote.

The case against Twitter was filed in January by Tamara Fields, the widow of Lloyd 'Carl' Fields, Jr., one of the contractors killed in the attack. The suit was later joined by Heather Creach on behalf of her late husband, James Creach, who was also killed.

The ruling bodes ill for other similar cases pending against Twitter, Google Inc. and Facebook Inc. alleging that their platforms provide support to terrorist organizations. Last month, families of five victims killed in attacks in Israel'filed a lawsuit'seeking at least $1 billion from Facebook claiming the social network is providing support for Hamas militants to commit terrorist acts.

Orrick had'made clear'during a June hearing that he was inclined to dismiss the suit against Twitter. But he also followed through with his pledge to allow the plaintiffs another shot to amend their complaint, giving them until the end of August to address the concerns he identified.

Joshua Arisohn of Bursor & Fisher, who argued for the families of the American contractors killed in the attack, did not respond to an email seeking comment. Twitter, represented in the matter by former Solicitor General Seth Waxman at Wilmer Cutler Pickering Hale and Dorr, also did not respond to a request for comment.

Twitter's defense under the Communications Decency Act hinged on a provision known as section 230(c)(1), which the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit has interpreted as essentially immunizing 'providers of interactive computer services against liability arising from content created by third parties.'

Arisohn sought to get around that by contending that Twitter can be held liable for simply providing accounts to ISIS operatives ' giving them a valuable service for free that allows them to spread propaganda.

But Orrick was not persuaded by that line of argument, and said that it necessarily was tied up with the content that those ISIS operatives actually post. 'Plaintiffs do not explain why this difference means that the provision of accounts theory seeks to treat Twitter as something other than a publisher of third-party content, and I am not convinced that it does,' he wrote.

In one of the more detailed points of the decision, Orrick also ruled that Twitter's direct messaging function is not outside the reach of section 230(c)(1). The plaintiffs had argued that it is because 'publishing' necessarily means putting something in the public domain.

Orrick noted that previous case law has barred claims against internet service providers for defamation by a third party, where a message was transmitted between the defamer and anyone other than the person being defamed. 'Under this analysis, the private nature of direct messaging does not remove the transmission of such messages from the scope of publishing activity under section 230(c)(1),' he wrote.

Ben Hancock writes for The Recorder, the San Francisco-based ALM sibling of Internet Law & Strategy. He can be reached at'[email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @benghancock.